


all the things you don't learn in school

by adreadfulidea



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 10:38:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13293054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: Most college kids called home to update their parents on their activities, to tell comforting lies and ask for money when they needed it. Michael called his old social worker and he never once asked for anything.





	all the things you don't learn in school

**Author's Note:**

> An extra warning for child abuse being described and discussed. Nothing gratuitous, I would think, but YMMV.

 

 

 

 

The girl in his English class had long dark hair and green eyes. Her smile was big and slightly gappy. She tended to chew the ends of her pens when she was thinking. Once, running late, she had worn a costume from a dress rehearsal to class. It was a toga topped with a crown of leaves. Michael was pretty sure she was a theater major. And she was looking for a roommate. He overheard her telling her friend about it.

“We’re only short one,” she whispered, while the professor droned on about John Cheever. Michael hated American lit, swear to god. “$600 a month plus splitting utilities.”

“I can’t,” her friend said. She was a blonde sorority sister type, with a slight accent. French, maybe? “I’m moving in with my sister, remember?”

“You need a roommate?” Michael asked. “That’s great!”

They turned and looked at him. The blonde girl’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead.

“I mean for me,” he said.

“Michael, right?” his classmate asked. She really was incredibly pretty, especially sitting in patch of sunlight like she was, her dark hair tinted chestnut and her eyes bright. “I’m Megan.”

“So will you take guys?” he asked. “Or just girls? Where do I hand in my application? I don’t have many references but I’m real good at communal living. I grew up in a group home.”

“And now you’re here,” the blonde said, kind of icily. Michael didn’t miss the little glare Megan slid in her direction.

“There’s no application,” she said. “And guys are fine. Just come by and meet my other housemates.”

The class had gone very quiet without any of them noticing. The professor was leaning back against his desk, observing them silently. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We can wait for you to finish.”

Megan flushed. “Sorry, Don,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears and ducking her head. She didn’t look up from her paper for the rest of the hour.

 

 

 

Most college kids called home to update their parents on their activities, to tell comforting lies and ask for money when they needed it. Michael called his old social worker and he never once asked for anything.

He always waited until his roommate was out because he didn’t want to explain who Morris was. Not to Harry, whom he loathed openly and persistently. Who was always cheating on his perfectly nice girlfriend and making Michael a witness to it because he didn’t understand what fucking privacy was. The idiot couldn’t even remember to put a sock on the doorknob.

“Michael,” Morris said, sounding overjoyed to hear from him, as he always did. “How are things?”

“The way they usually are,” he said.

“Oh,” said Morris. “So — bad?”

“ _No_ ,” Michael said, and Morris laughed.

“Good, good,” he said, and he didn’t ask if he had made any friends, because he did in fact know Michael very well. “Tell me what you’re doing for the summer.”

“I’ll stay here,” Michael said. “Not in the dorm. I’m moving out. Or I think I’m moving out.”

“You think?”

“I’m waiting on confirmation.” He was checking his phone every half hour, making sure he hadn’t missed a text or a call. Michael wasn’t a patient person. He had tried to learn it, sitting in the back of the class in school, pulling at the loose threads of the ragged hoodies he wore. Or when he had been in the hospital, counseled by doctors and watched over by orderlies and with no schedule but to look out the window or ask for more therapy. He had chosen therapy. Not because he liked it; because it had been something to do, a way of keeping his mind from cannibalizing itself. Michael had seen what happened to the patients who lacked the engines needed to self-propel. They scared him. They represented the probable future. The endpoint of his compulsive urge to self-detonate.

Morris had been the only one who visited him.

“What kind of a living situation?” Morris said. “You know these people well? Are they —”

“They’re complete criminals, they’re out to steal what money I got and leave me for dead,” he said. “Morris. Stop worrying. It’s not your job anymore.”

“Right,” Morris said, with a sigh. “Well, I don’t have many hobbies. So. Summer. Not coming back to the city?”

It was an invitation, Michael knew. He could have visited if he’d wanted to: he was an adult now, and whatever rules had been in place about fraternizing when he was a kid no longer applied. He could make his own decisions. Morris himself was retired and spent the days previously filled with courtrooms and home visits walking in the park or working in the little woodshop out behind his house. Yet Michael never let on that he was picking up on any hints. He closed his ears. And he couldn’t quite say why.

“I’ll be living just off campus,” he said. “If everything goes through. I wouldn’t want to lose my place in the house by not sticking around.”

“Makes sense,” said Morris. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Michael thought about the way the campus was going to empty out. He thought about all the students going home to their happy, hearty families, maybe even his own future roommates. How quiet it would be. He imagined walking the streets alone, prettier than the ones he came from but no less impersonal.

“I won’t,” he said.

 

 

 

Morris was a bleeding heart and a veteran of the trenches, a combination that was invaluable in his line of work. Social workers burned out at an incredible rate but he’d been going for twenty-five years strong by the time Michael came to him. Michael was nine years old and a problem case. He had been in the system for two years. Morris was the fifth worker to be assigned to him.

They only met a couple times before Michael got his new placement, mostly at burger joints where he tried to eat as much as possible without actually looking like he was gorging himself. His last foster parents had locked the fridge except for at mealtimes.

Morris hadn’t ordered anything for himself. “I’m old,” he’d said. “Fast food gives me stomach upset.” He pushed an extra container of fries Michael’s way and told him about his new family.

The Dad was ex-military who worked some kind of private contracting. The Mom stayed at home. Their names were Jason and Gina, which Michael thought was sort of funny. Jason and Gina, like they matched. They had a son and two other fosters already. “Big house,” Morris said. “Big yard, lots of room for you to run around if you want.” Michael was short and skinny and didn’t exactly look like the kind of boy who engaged in a lot of athletics. So Morris was being very optimistic.

He arrived on a Friday. The whole family was waiting for him. The house was pale pink stucco and had a garden in the front _and_ the back. There was a pond with real fish in the water and an orange tree that didn’t have fruit on it ‘cause they weren’t in Florida. The floors were real wood, which he had never seen before. He slid up and down them in his sock feet while the adults talked about boring stuff. And he didn’t even get in trouble for it.

Morris clapped him on the shoulder with his big hand before he left. It made his knees buckle a little. “Anything you need, you call me,” he said. “You know how to do that?”

“Use a phone?” Michael had asked, incredulous. “Duh. I’m not stupid.”

It was a great first day and a great first week. He played with the dog, won a spelling contest at his new school, read comic books up in the big attic room he and the other foster kids shared. It smelled like cedar shavings and they had matching blue bedspreads. He was as restless at night as he always was, but there was a window seat he could occupy and watch the stars from.

This is the nicest place I’ve ever been, he found himself thinking, and later he would look back on those words and wonder if he had cursed himself by daring to hope. If Michael’s life had taught him anything it was that the gods didn’t like to behold too happy mortals.

It was a Monday night. Calm with a little cloud, the stars that comforted Michael so much visible only in patches. He’d gone to bed and fallen asleep quickly for once. It didn’t matter, because that was the night Jason woke him up — woke them _all_ up — screaming about money going missing from Gina’s purse.

Michael was the new addition, so apparently that meant he was the culprit. Jason dragged him out of bed by the arm. “Where is it?” he asked, shaking Michael so hard his teeth rattled. “What did you do with the money, you little shit?”

“I don’t know!” Michael said, clawing at Jason’s hand. He was too strong for it to make a difference; his knuckles went white. Michael would have bruises there the next day. “I don’t have any money!”

Gina had followed them in. “Jason, stop,” she begged. “I’m sure it just got lost. Come back to bed.” But she didn’t do anything about it. She didn’t try and pull her husband off. “No,” she said, and covered her ears instead. “No no _no_.”

“You want the belt?” Jason asked, and Michael didn’t know what that was but it sounded terrifying. The other kids were crying, loudly. Downstairs the dog had started to bark.

“In the yard!” Michael screamed, without much awareness of what he was saying. He only knew that if he could get outside he could get away. He could run.

Jason had him by the collar, but Michael’s clothes were old and cheap and weak from too many washings. As soon as the back door opened, cool air hitting him in the face and making his eyes water, he made a break for it. His shirt ripped. The fence was high but not so high that it kept him in. Michael played in abandoned lots and back alleys. He knew how to climb. Eyes streaming, his heart in his throat, he made it over that fucking fence.

And Jason couldn’t follow. He had a knee injury from the army. Just the day before he had showed Michael how it went _pop_ when he moved it just right.

Michael ran until his bare feet hurt and he thought his throat would close up. The inside of his chest was on fire when he tried to breathe and maybe that was it for him, maybe he would die, maybe this was what dying felt like. There were tears running down his face and dripping off his chin. He couldn’t see the road. But he found a gas station and went inside.

Michael wiped his face off with his forearm. He was panting and his feet were bleeding from the rocks and gravel that had scraped them in a hundred places. His pyjama shirt stuck to him from sweat. “Can I use your phone?” he asked, or tried to ask. His voice was like breaking sticks.

“Holy _shit_ ,” said the attendant, and called the police instead.

Michael tried to see the stars on the drive to the hospital. He pressed his overheated cheek against the cool window. They fled from him, hiding their faces behind thick cloud. The police sirens scared them all away.

At the hospital they bandaged his feet and poked at him a bunch and asked a lot of questions. They changed him into a gown and somebody gave him a cup of green jello. Morris arrived soon after, and he looked upset. His face was all red like he had been yelling or crying. And he must have already talked to the police because he knew all about what had happened.

“I didn’t do it,” Michael said, defensively. He threw his jello cup on the ground. He was tired and hurting and all he wanted was for everyone to leave him alone so he could sleep.

“Do what?” Morris asked, depositing the jello into a nearby garbage can. “I don’t understand.”

“Steal that fucking money!” he yelled, and then immediately felt guilty. He wasn’t supposed to say ‘fuck’ even though all the adults did.

“ _Michael_ ,” Morris said. “I don’t think you stole any money or did anything wrong. I believe you. I’m on your side, okay? This is not your fault. It’s never your fault when people who are supposed to be looking after you don’t do their jobs.”

Michael didn’t know if he meant himself or Jason or Gina or all of them. His chin started to shake.

“Okay?” Morris said. His face was worn and kind.

“Okay,” said Michael, sniffling, and turned over on his side to go to sleep.

Morris stuck with him. He was the only worker — the only person, really — who ever had. But there were still problems. There was the foster mother who was perfectly nice but got so drunk every night that Michael had to help her into bed. There was the couple who suddenly got pregnant and then there was no more room for him. There was the group home, which Michael didn’t mind so much because nobody cared what he did as long as he didn’t break the rules. No one pretended to care about _him_ , either — the staff was largely indifferent and short lived. He appreciated that. He had a growing distaste for hypocrisy.

And then, at thirteen, there were the Drexlers. There was nothing wrong with them.

“They’re even Jewish,” Morris had joked, on the drive there. They were a nice middle-aged couple with their kids gone to college, a son at Harvard and a daughter all the way overseas in Italy.

“Studying renaissance art,” George Drexler had said, leading him upstairs to the room he would be staying in. “She doesn’t get it from me. I can’t draw a straight line.”

Michael lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling. The walls of the room were covered in family pictures. There was a trophy case set up for the kid’s awards: baseball, judo, music. A couple of little overachievers. Right above the headboard there was a framed picture of Mr. Drexler and his son, who was grinning with a baseball bat over his shoulder. A couple years older than Michael was now. They looked very happy.

In the morning he asked to use the phone, and he called Morris. “I don’t want to be here,” he said. “Take me back to the group home.”

 

 

 

The clock by the bed said two in the morning. Michael didn’t turn on a light or get up for a glass of water. He was too used to nightmares to be driven out of his bed. He listened instead to Harry’s chainsaw snoring. If the dream hadn’t woken him, _that_ would have.

He turned his head to watch the numbers on the clock change, and his phone lit up unexpectedly.

It was Megan Calvet, sending him a text. It read: _They liked you. You’re in! YAAAYY!!!_

A few seconds later he received another one. _Oh shit_ , this one read, _I didn’t just wake you up, did I?_

Michael smiled at the screen. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

 

 

 

His new place was a green pseudo-Victorian about thirty minutes from campus by bus. He didn’t think it was that old, just built to look like it was. It had gingerbread edges, little curlicues and details edging the windows and the roof. There was a rock garden rather than a lawn, and considering who lived there it was a miracle no one was throwing beer bottles or cigarettes between the flowers.

He rang the bell and Megan was the one who answered. “Hi!” she said, grinning, and invited him in. There was a lot of hammering going on upstairs. “That’s Stan,” she said. “We always make him fix anything that breaks because he used to work construction in the summer.”

The room she led him to was just off the kitchen. It was the only bedroom on the first floor. He passed Peggy in the living room, sprawled on the couch with her cat, Grapefruit. She gave him a uninvested wave and continued to turn pages in the textbook she was reading.

Megan opened the curtains and let sunlight pour in. The window was already cracked open — all the windows were, to try and fight off the burgeoning summer heat. No central air in a place like this. The back of Michael’s neck was damp with sweat from the bus ride over. Sometimes he thought he would like to live in a place where the snow never left.

“It’s actually cooler down here,” she said, “so you’re lucky. But we have extra fans if you need one.”

“That would be nice,” he said, and opened his suitcase on the bed. It was cheap brown vinyl, cracked on one side. He’d gotten it when he was nine and could barely lift it. Everything he owned fit in that one case.

“Did you travel a lot?” Megan asked, and Michael realized she meant the stickers. They were all over the suitcase, from destinations as close as Hawai’i and as far away as Australia.

“No,” he said. “It’s secondhand. I grew up in New York. The city, I mean. Obviously we’re still in New York.”

“A place so nice they named it twice,” she said. She sat down next to the suitcase. “I could sing the song for you. I went through a Liza phase.”

“Please don’t,” he said, and she laughed. It was a really nice laugh.

“I figured that’s where you must be from,” she said. “Honestly I didn’t think that kind of accent existed anymore.”

“Are you calling me a dinosaur, Megan?”

“Noooo,” she said. “A classic.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s better.” He paused in opening a drawer in the dresser. “Maybe it’s cause I never watched that much TV. I heard that smooths regional accents out, or something.”

“Maybe,” she said. “So will you be going anywhere for the summer?”

“Nope. You?”

“Paris,” she said. “With my Mom.” She kicked her feet a little at the prospect, like she was so excited she couldn’t sit still. It was cute. She was a cute person.

“That sounds amazing,” he said. “And you’re French, right?”

“Not that kind of French,” she said. “But yeah. I’m really looking forward to it. We’re going in August. I haven’t been since I was a kid.”

“Oh,” he said, and wondered what that kind of life would be like: looking forward to Paris because you’d only been once or twice before. “Bring me back French perfume,” he said.

She laughed again, and he liked the sound of it just as much the second time. “Don’t joke,” she said. “Or I will.”

 

 

 

Michael hovered outside the door. “Campus Queers”, the taped up sign on it said, every letter a different color. They had the room from six to eight in the evenings on Wednesdays. He knew this because he had their schedule memorized, and had made his approach three times only to succumb to his own cowardice at the last minute.

He screwed his courage to the sticking place, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, and pushed the door open. He felt like he was painted in day-glo neon and everyone was going to be staring at him. This was, of course, totally stupid. No one noticed him coming in and he slouched to the back of the room, hoping the trend would continue.

Everyone looked pretty normal, like any group of college students. Maybe there were more undercuts present than usual. Someone had brought Starbucks for everyone, so he poured himself a cup. There was also a pan of rice krispie squares. Megan Calvet was cutting it.

“I think I put too much marshmallow in these,” she said, and then saw him standing there. He tried to make himself invisible via psychic powers but since he didn’t have any it didn’t work. “Michael!” she said, her face lighting up, and came over.

He felt himself getting hot in the face. It hadn’t occurred to him that he would run into anyone he knew here. He barely _knew_ anyone, except for Harry the Horrible Heterosexual and it wasn’t like he’d be caught dead at a meeting like this. Michael’s plan had been to sneak in, acclimate himself, and say nothing to nobody. Since that was a wash he tried to socially interact, with mixed results. “Um,” he said. “Hi.”

“Want a rice krispie?” she asked, and handed him one on a paper plate. He noticed she was wearing a paper badge in the shape of the bisexual flag. There was a bowl of them on the table.

“They’re optional,” she explained, playing with the edge of hers. “But I can get you one if you want.”

“Sure,” he said, because what the hell, why not, he had already incriminated himself. “Um. The same, please.”

She pinned it on him. “There,” she said, and patted him on the chest, and his ears went red, and he felt like an idiot.

“Thanks,” he said. “Do you come here often?”

She smiled and made herself a coffee, putting a lot of sugar but not a lot of cream in it. “Not the worst use of the line I’ve ever heard.”

“No,” he stuttered, “I’m not — I meant —”

Megan put her hand on his arm. “It’s a joke.”

“Thank god.”

“I do come here a lot,” she said. “I’m guessing you… don’t?”

“No,” he muttered, and swallowed coffee. “It’s my first time. In here.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” she said. “I’m a regular and I’d never seen you at a meeting. Well, cheers,” she said, and bumped her cup against his. “First time for everything, right?”

“Not everything,” he said. “I mean, you wouldn’t want there to be a first time for an asteroid striking the earth. Or getting eaten by a pack of dogs. Or venereal disease.” He paused. “I can’t believe I just said venereal disease.”

Megan’s mouth was twitching, and it was clear she was trying not to laugh at him. Which was very polite considering just how badly he deserved it. “I can’t believe you think it’s as bad as being eaten by dogs.”

“How would I know?” he said. “I’ve never experienced either. I guess both probably wouldn’t happen to one person. The dogs thing especially.”

Megan actually choked on her drink, covering her mouth with her hand and then a napkin. She waved it at him when he tried to help. “Go away, you lunatic,” she wheezed. “You’re making it worse.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said, and went and sat down. He wasn’t so nervous anymore, and when Megan came to sit beside him he draped her purse over the back of his chair so she wouldn’t have to put down her coffee or food.

“Thanks,” she said, grinning, and then the meeting started.

They talked about Pride, mostly, and what everyone was doing for it. Megan was actually going to be marching in the parade. Michael couldn’t even imagine. Just the thought made the palms of his hands start to sweat.

 

 

 

“Want to go get something to eat?” Megan asked, after the meeting was over. “I can treat.”

He probably should have said no. He had, typically, a policy of rejecting anything that smelled like charity. But he was hungry, and it was late, and he didn’t want to have to cook when he got back to the house.

“Sure,” he said, and they headed off into the dewey warm night.

It was so quiet that he could hear crickets chirping in the grass. Megan was wearing a white summer dress and it seemed to glow slightly under the streetlights, the way flowers that opened after dark did. The skirt rustled against her legs, moved by the breeze that also pushed through their hair. Michael glanced up and traced the constellations in his head.

“What are you looking at?” Megan asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just something I do.”

They went to an Indian place that was popular with the college crowd and she made him order off the middle of the menu instead of the cheapest thing there.

Michael pushed his food around his plate. “I wanna say thanks for tonight. Helping me out at the — _meeting_. It made it all kinda easier, seeing a friendly face. This is all new to me.” He shrugged. “Maybe it shouldn’t be. I’m a late bloomer.”

“Don’t worry about timelines for this kind of thing,” she said. “They don’t really exist. How old are you, anyway?”

“Eighteen.”

She made a scoffing noise. “See? You’re just a baby, you have a ton of time.”

“How old are _you_?”

She cracked a smile. “Nineteen.”

“Uh huh. A wise old crone.”

“Wiser than you, at least.”

“You did make rice krispie treats,” he said. “That should have tipped me off to your advanced age.”

“Hey,” she said. “I learned that at my _au pair’s_ knee. And next time you don’t get any.”

“You had an _au pair_?” he said, unimpressed.

“There were five of us, okay? My mother needed a break.”

He looked intently into her face, still a little soft with baby fat. “Lemme guess. You’re the youngest, right?”

She scowled at him. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“Ha,” he said, “nailed it.”

Megan flicked a piece of naan at him, which was a very mature reaction and definitely not a confirmation that she had been the spoiled youngest daughter, the one who had her parents wrapped around her little finger. She drank noisily through her straw and smiled benignly at the room while he brushed crumbs from his shirt.

“So your parents,” he said, folding his napkin into little squares and wondering if he should be asking at all, “they’re… okay, with everything?”

“You mean am I out?” she asked, wryly. “Yes, they know. I mean, they’re Catholics but they’re also liberal. So it all works out in the end. Besides, I’m bad at keeping secrets. I had to tell somebody. Not everyone is as lucky as I am,” she added, and Michael knew that she meant him.

He tried to imagine telling the people who used to be his parents. Not any of the foster parents, who had never claimed to be family, but the man and woman who had originally adopted him. The ones whose names he wouldn’t allow himself to say in years. The past was a fog of disappointed expressions and knowing that he could be discarded as easily yesterday’s trash the minute somebody got tired of him: because he was too annoying, too tiring, too needy. To sit down with _those_ people and tell them who he was? No. And in the group home it might have gotten him beaten or worse.

“I never had anyone to be out to,” he said. “Until now.”

It wasn’t until he was back home, lying on top of the sheets in his room, that he realized the badge was still pinned to his shirt. He’d had it on the whole time and nobody had noticed, least of all him.

 

 

 

“That’s Sarah Bernhardt,” Megan said, _sotto voce_ , clicking through to the next tab and scrolling down. Michael was pretty much the only one in the class not using a laptop. He had to go to the library to type anything up because he didn’t have a computer at all. The woman in the picture had thick curly hair that fanned out above her shoulders and a strong profile. “She was crazy famous. Meryl Streep famous, or maybe even more.”

“Wow,” Michael whispered, trying to see some trace of fame or destiny in the woman’s face. But of course fame was always an accident anyway.

“Yeah,” Megan said. “And she slept in a coffin.”

“Uh. Why?”

Megan thought about, and then shrugged. “Publicity.” She went to another tab. “This is Eleonora Duse. They say she was the first modern actor — so realistic and in-the-moment that she could blush spontaneously on stage. She said that her goal was to ‘eliminate the self’ when she acted.”

“So method before method.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Megan said. “I’d love to have a time machine to —”

“Megan,” Don said, terribly calm, from the front of the class. She sat straight up, her face flushing. “Can we step outside for a minute?”

Megan closed her laptop. A muscle in her cheek twitched. She looked frankly terrified, and that was what led Michael to hop to his feet and make a scene.

“I was talking, too,” he snapped. “And I’m a lot louder than she is. You wanna talk to me outside of class?”

The moment stretched out long enough that it became uncomfortable for everyone. Megan looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her fingers grasped his sleeve. For support or to call him off, he didn’t know.

“Sit down, Michael,” Don said finally. He pointed a pen at Megan, almost playfully. “In my office after class, Miss Calvet.”

Michael sank back into his seat. He was too filled with adrenaline to hear anything else Don said. It was like the teachers from Charlie Brown.

“Holy shit,” Megan mumbled. She was clearly trying to keep from visibly moving her lips. “Are you _suicidal_.”

“What?” Michael asked. “I’m not afraid of that guy.”

He waited for her outside of Don’s office to prove it. If he heard a single raised voice he was going in. They weren’t in fucking kindergarten, nobody got sent to the principal’s office here. But there was no yelling, no evidence of an argument. Megan came out looking downcast all the same.

Don sighed at the sight of him. “ _Why_ are you here?” he asked, as though Michael were a ne'er do well acquaintance who kept showing up to borrow money.

“I promised I’d carry her books,” Michael said. As soon as the door closed he turned to Megan and hissed, “That son of a bitch. He can’t say ‘please be quiet’ like a normal person?”

“He’s not that bad,” Megan said. “No, he really isn't. Not once you get to know him. He wants us to be — better, you know? Smarter and more grown up. I always feel like such a dumb kid when I talk to him. You know he won an O. Henry award?”

“Good for him,” said Michael. “He’s still an asshole.”

She laughed and threw her arm around his shoulders. “You’ll see,” she said, and gave him her enormous Shakespeare textbook. “What?” she asked, innocently, at his raised eyebrows. “You said you’d carry them.”

 

 

 

He should have seen it coming. But Michael had never been very good at reading behavior or ferreting out hints. He wished people would just say things so that he couldn’t misunderstand. Why did they like making you _guess_ so much?

It was after dark, and he was coming home from his shift with sore feet and dishwater hands. The restaurant had played host to a football team that night. They’d had a lot of fun, but no one else did. He was yawning, his eyes dry and the smell of kitchen grease clinging to him still. He needed a shower and he needed his bed, and his intense focus on both was why he didn’t see Megan until it was too late to turn back.

She was getting pressed up against the front door by some guy. Michael blinked, vision swimming, before he picture in front of him resolved itself into coherence. “Fuck,” he said, backing away and waving a hand in front of his face. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

“ _Merde_ ,” Megan said, and the guy came up for air. It was Don Draper.

“I — shit,” Michael said. He realized he was staring and forced himself to snap out of it. “I’ll go around the back.”

“Michael, it’s fine,” said Megan.

“I’ll leave,” Don said, at the same time.

“Seriously?” she said, her head turning back towards him, annoyance making her voice sharp. “You just _got_ here.”

“I can’t go in _now_ ,” said Don.

“I can go!” said Michael. “I’m going, look.”

“He’s already seen you, Don. That doesn’t make any sense.” Don shook his head, and she grabbed at his arm when he moved away. “Hey, no. Come on, we should just go upstairs.” Her voice had softened but it had no effect on Don’s resolve. He brushed past Michael as he left, his suit jacket thrown over his arm, smelling faintly of cigarettes and the kind of cologne Michael could never afford. Megan looked after him, her face terribly open and pained. He thought he could hear the beating of her heart before realizing it was his own.

“I really am sorry,” Michael said.

“It’s not your fault,” Megan said, but it was mechanical. She was watching him pull away from the curb. He opened the door for her and they stood in mutual awkwardness in the front hall.

“So is he —-” Michael started.

“Could you not tell —” she said.

They both stopped. She smiled a little. “You first.”

Michael shook his head. “It’s not — I shouldn’t have been asking.”

“He’s not married,” said Megan, anger flashing momentarily in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have an affair with a married man. He’s just older than me, that’s all.”

“Oh,” said Michael. “How old _is_ he?”

“Thirty-four,” she said.

“So is it the age difference?” he asked. “Is that why you can’t —”

“Because it’s against the rules,” she said. “We could get in a lot of trouble.” She sighed, sitting down on a bench and pulling off her shoes. “I could get him fired. You’re kind of naive, you know that?”

“Okay,” said Michael, hurt. He decided to be done with the night. It was time to wash the day off of him and go to bed, and Megan could sit there in the dark and call him whatever she wanted. But she grabbed the back of his pants and wouldn’t let go when he tried to leave, one foot on the stairs. “Megan, what the fuck.”

“I’m not mad at you,” she said. “I’m just so — he makes me frustrated, sometimes. I wish I knew what he wanted. Why can’t men ever say what they mean?”

“I always say what I mean,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, and turned him loose. “You do. Don’t be mad at me. I don’t think I can handle two people hating me on the same night.”

“I don’t _hate_ you,” Michael said. “Why would you think I did? I like you so much, you’re a Canadian ray of sunshine.”

Megan leaned back, pressing the back of her head against the wall. She closed her eyes and her hands hung limply between her knees, her long limbs making her look like a fallen marionette. “I know,” she said. “God, I’m so overdramatic. That’s what Don always says, that I overreact to things. That I’m blowing them up inside my head. He laughs about it sometimes.”

“That isn’t true,” Michael said. And he wanted to say: fuck him, fuck him for making fun of you. But she wouldn’t have appreciated it, so he held his tongue. The impossible made possible, Michael Ginsberg staying quiet.

She opened one eye. “So we’re okay?”

“We’re good,” he said. “We were always good.”

Megan nodded. She ran her fingers through her hair and straightened her shoulders. “Still,” she said, looking at him slyly. “It’s kind of hot, right? A secret affair with a brilliant man. I could put this in an autobiography one day.”

Secrets made Michael feel sick. He had always hated knowing them or keeping them. They felt like lies. Maybe it was because he had too many already. A kind of psychic overeating. Other people weren’t like him — they didn’t carry the weight of ugly personal history with every step. They didn’t end up in mental hospitals because of it.

It probably was fun, for Megan. And she was sharing it with him. His own opinion of the situation didn’t matter. And hell, he didn’t know what their relationship was like when they were alone. Don could be a totally different person behind closed doors.

He didn’t know anything about relationships to begin with.

“I’d read that,” he said, and they went up the stairs together.

 

 

 

The week of Pride was the hottest it had been all year. Ginsberg lay limp and sticky in his bedroom, the fan pushing the warm air around and providing little relief. Peggy ate popsicles after every meal and he caught Stan dumping ice into the bathtub one day. Megan lived at the pool, except when she was putting her costume together.

It involved a violet dress and purple and pink wings. They were made out of styrofoam on a wire frame and she glued the feathers on herself with painstaking care. They’d been white when she brought them home from the craft store and she had dyed them in the backyard in a big plastic tub. She had a pink streak on her nose for several days after. It must have cost quite a bit to put together, but Michael was beginning to notice that Megan didn’t pay much attention to money.

“That’s gonna be some rig,” he said, one afternoon when he was helping her with the last of the feathers.

“You have to come see it,” she said. “You can watch from the crowd. You don’t have to march with us.”

“I might,” he said. “I dunno.” The glue gun slipped and he pulled his hand back, cursing. There was a red patch on the side of his index finger, not blistering yet but getting there. “God, why am I such a klutz.”

“I’ve done it a million times,” she reassured him, and got an ice cube from the freezer to press against the burn. He hissed when she did. “Shhh,” she said. “There. All better.”

“A little better.”

She followed her doctoring up with something that made his heart stutter in his chest. “I know how to fix it,” she said, and dropped a kiss on his knuckles. “A lot better?” she asked, totally guileless.

Michael suddenly found swallowing difficult. Faintly lightheaded, he tried to come up with something to say. If he was smoother or even the slightest bit manipulative, he would have asked her to do it again. Maybe one more will help, he would say, and she would kiss him again, and then he would kiss her, on her soft plump mouth —

For fuck’s sake, what was wrong with him?

“Great,” he lied, and pulled his hand away slowly.

Megan looked worried. “Was that weird?” she asked. “Because I was —”

“It’s fine, totally fine —”

“ — kissing it better —”

“I know,” he said. “I know what — I get it, what you were doing. It was a joke. A joke. I know.”

“It was stupid,” she said.

“It’s fine,” he said. “What? You didn’t molest me. I get more personal with people on the subway.”

“So,” she said, clearly desperate for a change of subject. Her face was faintly red and he pretended not to notice. “Are you going to stop by Pride? I think you should.”

He curled his hand into a ball and pressed the edge of his thumbnail into the burn. “I’ll come,” he said, and didn’t let how pleased his promise made her go to his head.

Michael didn’t dress in any special way for the parade. He wore shorts and sunglasses and a t-shirt from one of the high schools he’d attended. He put sunscreen on. That was about it. The crowd was filled with revelers in garish makeup and feather boas and that was before you got to the drag queens. It was easy to be anonymous, a nobody, invisible next to the glittering rainbow of sexualities and genders on display. How Megan managed to pick him out, he would never know.

He was up at the front of the crowd. She left before he did and he wanted to get a good look at her as she went past. And he did. Everything matched, from her earrings to her shoes, and the wings turned out great. She was a little walking bisexual flag. When she passed by, so close to the sidewalk he could smell her perfume, she grinned and leaned in and grabbed his hand. He let her.

“Can you swim?” she called out.

“What?” he said, but then she was dragging him over to her.

“It’s that or sink!” she said. “I have _full_ confidence in you.”

“Oh no,” he said, his head swiveling back and forth like he was stuck to a dashboard. “Oh, this is evil.”

“You’re fine,” she said, holding him so tightly he couldn’t escape. “See? You’re doing just fine.” And it was strange, really, so strange, but —

She was right.

 

 

 

Megan left for Paris with her mother and Michael spent the rest of the summer getting destroyed by Peggy at Mario Kart and watching Stan paint. He picked up extra shifts at work and borrowed Stan’s bike to ride around town and find all the interesting corners in it that he could. He even made it to synagogue a handful of times. It was a good summer and had been a good year. Michael tried to remember the last time that had been true, for him, and he couldn’t.

He tried not to think about Megan much. He was sure she wasn’t thinking about him at all.

She came back with gifts for everybody, a bottle of perfume for Peggy, an art book for Stan with paper so thin it was almost see-through, and a picture for Michael’s bedroom wall. “I got it at the flea market,” she confessed. “It’s isn’t expensive. But it reminded me of you.” It was a man in a black jacket, the collar pulled up to hide his face, running through the rain. You could only see his eyes and they were soft and tired. He put it on the wall opposite from his bed so that he could look at it without getting up.

Don’s long black car pulled up outside the house and Megan got in. But only under the cover of darkness, and she never stayed over there. Michael would hear her keys in the door past midnight, sometimes when the sun was coming up. Gradually the car came by less and less. Megan checked her phone with anxious fingers, shaking her head when there were no texts, no new messages.

Michael tried not to call her unless it was absolutely necessary. He didn’t want her to be disappointed when it was only him. In late September she turned twenty and Don didn’t grace the household with his presence. She waited until ten before going out with her girlfriends, returning at three in the morning stoned and giggly and tripping her way up the stairs. The next day a big bouquet of roses got delivered to the house, with Megan’s name on the card.

They spent more time together after her return than they had before she left, though they no longer shared a class. On Halloween she dragged him to a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and he barely escaped her putting eyeliner on him. The leaves fell and the weather turned. Michael layered sweatshirts under the coat he had owned since he was sixteen. It was too thin for the cold but he’d never had enough cash on hand to replace it with anything better.

One night at the end of November, he came home from work to a box sitting on his bed. It had a ribbon and a bow on it as well as a card that said:

_This is not a Christmas present!_

_\- XOXO Megan_

There was a coat inside.

He went and knocked on her door. She was memorizing lines in her pyjamas but she acted like she’d been expecting him.

“Michael —”

“I can’t accept this.”

“It’s not for Christmas!” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “I just like wrapping things.”

“I know it’s not for Christmas,” he said. He pushed the box towards her. The coat was heavy, thick with down. It was the kind of outerwear built to survive the artic. It could not have been cheap. “It’s too expensive.”

“I have money.”

“I _can’t_.”

“I have money!” she said. “My parents are _always_ sending it to me. I don’t even have to look at my bank account. I just want to — let me spread it around a little before you get frostbite. God, Michael. Don’t you know how to take advantage of rich people? I thought you were a communist.”

“There’s a difference between a socialist and a communist, Megan. Reading _The Communist Manifesto_ one time does not a communist make,” he said. He looked down at the box. Even that was quality: Tiffany blue with a white pinstripe. And it was a beautiful coat.

“You want the coat,” she said.

“No.”

“You waaant the coat,” she said, smugly, getting up his personal space.

“Stop hypnotizing me!”

“You want the coat,” she said, and backed him up against the bedroom wall. She spread her fingers across his chest and pushed until he made contact with the wallpaper. “And you’re going to take it.”

He licked his lips. It was a compulsive, nervous gesture, but now she was looking at his mouth, and then he couldn’t stop looking at _hers_ —

He kissed her. Not for long; he had enough sense to break it off and try to take a step back. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, and felt bile rise in his throat, a sickly burn that made his stomach tie itself in knots. He had, as usual, ruined everything.

“Shhh,” she said, cupping his burning cheek and turning his face back towards her. She kissed him once, and then again, and slid her hands into his hair to hold him close. He dropped the box on the floor.

Michael genuinely didn’t think about sex all that much. Not the way other guys seemed to, as a goal in itself. He’d barely recognized having a sex drive at all, much less possessing a compass that pointed both north and south. His conflicting attractions had left him frozen in place. They had always felt too dangerous to indulge.

But he wanted Megan. He wanted her on the desk, to fuck her open up against the wall, any way he could have her, any way she would have him. He kissed her back and his blood thundered through his veins. He was sure he was hot to the touch, sparking like an unattended campfire.

“Tell me to go,” he said.

“No,” she said, and licked her way into his mouth. She fisted her hands in his hair and bit his ear, which was so fucking weird and so fucking _hot_.

“Then tell me how to make it good,” he begged.

“God,” she said, a shiver going through her. She pressed herself up against him. “You’re so —”

Megan never finished her sentence. She manhandled him onto the bed and pulled his shirt over his head. He ran a hand through his hair after, fucking it up even worse, flushing under her gaze. Because she was just standing there, holding his shirt. Her head tilted to the side. “Oh,” she said, and a smile spreading across her face. “I _like_ this.”

He put his hands on her hips. “And I,” he said, “like th— _this_.” The stutter was embarrassing; he had to force himself to look her in the eye.

“Really?” she said, and moved his hand to waist of her shorts. “Show me.”

He pulled them down. Her panties matched the pyjama set: shell pink. He looked up at her for confirmation.

Her throat worked and there was a shimmering something in her eyes — not tears — an unfulfilled desire or a need. He didn’t think it was for sex. She brushed his hair off his forehead; her fingers were cool and gentle. He leaned in to the touch.

“Do you want me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Say it,” she said. “I want to hear you say it.”

“I want you,” he said, and then she was on top of him, pushing down on his back. He rubbed her through her underwear with the tips of his fingers until the fabric got damp. She was breathing, heavy and wet, against the side of his neck. He was achingly hard. She ran her hands down his sides, and then her nails, and he sighed his pleasure against her lips. Finally she opened a drawer in her bedside table and handed him a condom.

“Have you ever put one of those on before?” she asked.

“I — yes.”

“On something other than a banana?”

“No.” he admitted.

“I’ll do it,” she said, punctuating her words with a kiss. “Wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

He hissed in relief when she undid his fly and worked his jeans and underwear down his hips. “Oh, god,” he groaned, screwing his eyes shut as she curled a hand around him. She held him too loosely for any satisfaction but his hips were already coming off the bed. “Jesus Christ.”

“And here I thought you were Jewish,” she said, and squeezed the base of his cock. “Oh,” she said, and looked down. “I guess you _are_ Jewish —”

“ _Megan_.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, and then the condom was on and her underwear was on the floor and she was sliding down him, inch by agonizing inch.

A small line appeared between her eyebrows. “Ah,” she said, as he bottomed out, the muscles in her thighs tensing. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“I’m inside you,” he said. “I can’t believe I — I’m really _inside_ you.” He had never considered that sex might be a small and contained miracle between two people, but that was how it felt. Megan raised herself up and let him slip almost all of the way out, only to screw herself down on his cock with a terrifically dirty slap of flesh that drove all thoughts of miracles out of his head. Because that was raw and physical and of the body, and _fuck_ he wanted more.

“Go slow,” she said. “And then fast.”

So he went slow, and then fast. He set his teeth and rocked up into her wet heat so carefully, so sweetly, and watched the blood come to the surface of her skin, staining her a pretty pink, a petal-pink, just like her underwear on the floor. And then she started to whine, high and impatient in the back of her throat, and he wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled her back against the mattress and let go. He wanted to fuck her _through_ it.

It felt like they were one thing, one frantic rutting animal. Megan panted underneath him, her open mouth pressed to his jaw. She squeezed his ass and at one point slapped it, making him jump. Her laugh was wild; halfway to a sob, a flash of teeth close to his throat. He took revenge by pinning her down and finding a better angle, one that made her clench up around him. “Fuck,” she cried out, “fuck _you_ , Michael.” Her nails bit into his back.

He was seeing stars. Actual stars, white bursts of light behind his eyelids. He was going to come, he was going to come and he couldn’t stop it —

Michael got a hand on Megan shamefully late but made up for lost time, pressing down on her clit, smearing her slick around until she started to seize up. “Here, here,” she said, and yanked so hard on her top that she broke one of the straps. She pinched her own nipple, rolled it between her fingers, and she wanted something from him, but _what_?

“Teeth,” she gasped, and he got the picture. He closed his teeth gently around her nipple, licked to soothe the sting, and then bit again because he wanted her to come, he needed to see her come — and it worked, she came, she wailed out an orgasm that probably woke the whole fucking house.

He was no better. Megan had to muffle the sound he was making, first by clapping a hand over his mouth and then by sliding her fingers inside, three of them. His lips stretched around her knuckles. And that was how he lost his virginity: breathing hard through his nose, sucking on her fingers, relief and shame making him fall apart in equal measure.

Megan was some kind of pervert genius. That much he knew.

The skin on his back was sore and his hips were sore and, shit, even his balls were sore. He couldn’t do much afterward but lie still and try to recover. She didn’t seem to mind. They curled up together in the rumpled nest of blankets, sticky and boneless. She had some redness around her mouth and he realized it was from his stubble. He was going to carry the half moons from her nails with him into tomorrow. They’d left marks on each other.

He kissed her forehead. “It’s so much more than I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. For it to be clinical. Or degrading. Or disappointing.”

“I’m not disappointed. You?”

“No,” he said. “God, no.”

“I needed this,” she said. “Thank you, Michael.”

“Needed what?”

“Affection,” she said. “Closeness.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair. She hummed low and tuneless, her eyelids fluttering like she was trying to stay awake. He could have gone to sleep, too. And they would wake up together in the morning. But there was something he needed to know. “Megan?” he said. “Are you still with Don?”

She was quiet for a minute, and he didn’t rush her. Pink spots re-appeared in her cheeks, borne of embarrassment rather than arousal. “I don’t know,” she said, pressing her lips together. She stopped looking at him and pulled the blankets up over them both. “I think so.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”

Was this cheating? He genuinely couldn’t tell. He didn’t know if Megan and Don’s relationship was supposed to be exclusive. They never spent any time together in the daylight. Never walked down the street holding hands or went to restaurants or went on dates. But did that mean it wasn’t real?

“Are you mad?” she asked.

“No,” he said, disturbed by the fact that she had asked him that question twice. Was somebody in her life getting angry at her that much? Was it Don? He didn’t have any way of approaching the subject without upsetting her. “When I’m mad about something it’s very easy to tell. Don’t worry.” He sat up, and tried not to let her small noise of complaint weaken his resolve. “But I should go back to my own room, for tonight.”

“Okay,” she said. “That’s fair. Don’t forget your coat. It isn’t payment for sex, I swear.”

“I kinda think I’m the one who should be paying you.” he said, and kissed her again before he got dressed and left. Jesus, why not. Because he could. Because it was the last time he could.

“No,” she said. “You were really great. I’m very impressed with you right now.”

He blushed. After all that, he fucking blushed. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “You should be.”

“Now get out,” she said. “Or I’ll make you get back in bed with me.”

 

 

 

Outside, in the hall, Michael touched his kiss-swollen lips. They tingled still. He wondered what he looked like, if it was obvious what he had done, but didn’t want to go check in a mirror. Not under harsh bathroom light that would chase away the last of the magic. His chest already hurt, and — he wouldn’t let himself be sad about this. He wouldn’t.

And Megan didn’t owe him anything just because they slept together once. He reminded himself of that, too.

He put his new coat in the closet downstairs. Rather than go to bed alone, he headed into the living room and fired up Stan’s laptop. Not that Stan had ever given him the password, but all of Stan’s passwords were incredibly easy to guess. This one was Peggy69. He watched Netflix until he passed out on the couch, and woke up to a horrible crick in his neck and Stan singing _Danny Boy_ with gusto in the kitchen.

 

 

 

Michael slid his arms into his coat and went to find Stan at the bar. He was drinking seltzer water with lemon, though he was the only one in the house old enough to actually have alcohol.

“On a diet?” Michael asked.

“Didn’t want to get started before Aristotle's,” he said. “Besides, the drinks here are expensive.”

“Everything here is expensive,” said Michael. It was weird, working at a place you could never eat at.

Aristotle's was a dive but it never carded anyone and they played Fellini movies above the bar. Michael wasn’t much of a drinker. He went along because that was what everyone else wanted to do. And somebody had to keep Peggy and Stan in line.

Their breath rose in plumes in the icy air. “You know,” Michael said, slipping on his gloves, “If you would let me drive your car we wouldn’t have to walk.”

“I’ve seen you drive,” Stan said. “You are not driving my car. Besides, Peggy brought it with her.”

Michael frowned. “I haven’t had much time to practice, that’s all.”

Stan reached across and adjusted the collar of his jacket. “This is nice,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”

“It was gift,” Michael mumbled. He buried his face in his scarf and fussed with the zipper.

“Hmm,” Stan said. He provided no further commentary.

It was karaoke night. Someone was on stage howling their way through Whitney Houston and absolutely shouldn’t have been. “God,” said Michael. “Why do we come here, again?”

“A lack of options,” Stan said.

Peggy was playing darts and had a coffee on the table next to her. She’d drawn the short straw for designated driving. Really, Michael would have done it if anyone would let him.

“No darts for you,” Stan said, steering him away from the board. “Not since —”

“Yeah, yeah,” Michael said. “It was once, how many times can I apologize?” He unwrapped himself from all his winter accoutrements and got them a pitcher of beer. He drummed his fingers on the bar while it was being poured, glancing around the bar. The rugby team occupied most of one quarter; they wore their jerseys though it was decidedly not rugby season. A girl was having a birthday, surrounded by friends and with a dollar store tiara on her head. And Don Draper was sitting in the corner with a blonde woman.

Michael blinked, willing the vision away. It remained. “Fuck,” he said, under his breath, just as Peggy appeared at his side.

“What?” she said, and followed his eyeline. “Oh. What the hell is _he_ doing here?”

“Picking up teenagers?” Michael asked, before he could stop himself.

Peggy laughed. “Probably.” She shrugged. “Everyone knows about him, you know? Except the girls that date him.” She looked at the blonde woman, who was wearing a blue wrap dress and had the kind of hair that appeared in shampoo commercials. “She doesn’t look like a student.”

“Probably graduated yesterday,” Michael said. He decided to be generous. “Or maybe she’s his sister.”

“Don doesn’t have any sisters,” Peggy said.

“Oh,” Michael said. “So you — never mind.”

She rolled her eyes. “ _No_ ,” she said. “Don helped me out once. We never — Jesus, Michael. And he isn’t really the kind of guy you can rely on. He looks like a cologne ad but he’s a total flake.”

“You don’t like him?”

“I don’t like what he does,” she said. “Which is separate from how I feel about him as a person.”

“Is that the same thing?” Michael asked. “Aren’t we what we do?”

“Maybe,” Peggy said. “But it never works that way for men, does it?” She leaned back against the counter. “And guess who else is here?” She pointed to what passed for the bar’s dance floor. There weren’t many people on it. Mostly drunk girls.

One of them turned around and oh shit, oh shit it was definitely Megan. She was wearing a leather crop top and a short velvet skirt under which her legs looked indecently long. It was freezing outside. Her eyeliner was smeared, her expression blurred. She was clearly wasted.

“I didn’t think this was her sort of place,” Michael said. “Clubs seem to be more her style.”

“I don’t think she’s been feeling herself lately,” Peggy said. “And we both know why.” She glanced sideways at him, her mouth turned down, and a hint of sympathy in her eyes. He thought she would say something else, but she punched him in the shoulder instead.

“How many people know?” he asked.

“About her and Don?” Peggy asked. “Or about her and you?”

Michael thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck fuck _fuck_.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Peggy said. “Everyone makes mistakes, right?”

“It wasn’t a _mistake_ ,” he said.

“Keep your voice down,” she advised, but it was too late. Megan turned toward the sound and spotted them. A broad, slightly queasy smile spread across her face. She headed towards them, swaying gently with each step. He was concerned for the integrity of her ankles in those shoes. If she hit a patch of ice outside, it was all over.

“Uh oh,” Peggy said. “Here come the fireworks.”

“Michael,” Megan said. “ _Peggy_. I’m so glad to see you. My friends left me here, can you believe it?”

“I can’t,” Peggy said, and Michael privately agreed. Shouldn’t they have poured her into a cab, at least?

“They didn’t want to come here in the first place,” she said. “ _Bitches_.”

Michael and Peggy exchanged a look. Shit. She was pretty far gone.

“I’m surprised you came in the first place,” Peggy said. She waved the bartender over. “Coffee, black.”

“Not really your usual scene,” Michael said. Megan didn’t worry about getting asked for ID or waiting in line. The same guys who were supposed to be carding her offered to buy her drinks instead.

“I have my reasons,” she said. She grabbed their hands. “Come dance with me.”

Michael grabbed the coffee when the bartender brought it back. He and Peggy put a hand each on Megan’s back. “How about,” he said, as they steered her towards their table, “we sit for a bit. I don’t feel like dancing.”

“Boo,” said Megan, pushing her tousled hair out of her face. “You suck.”

“Sure do,” said Michael. He set the coffee in front of her. She pushed it away, which was about what he expected. “No, Megan. That’s for you. Drink the nice coffee that Peggy got for you.”

“Okay,” she said. “But I need my purse.”

He scanned the floor for it. She’d left it hanging on a chair, wide fucking open.

“I got it,” Stan said. He brought it back to her, along with her coat. The coat was white with faux-fur trim and had an ushanka to match because Megan never did anything halfway when it came to clothes. “The good news if that your wallet is still here. The bad news is that if you had any money in it, it’s gone.”

“I spent it,” she said. She glared across the room at Don. “You know who _that_ is?” she slurred, and slapped her hands, palm down, on the surface of the table.

“Megan,” Michael cringed. “Don’t.”

Stan looked over his shoulder. “Your old English professor?”

“Not him,” she said. “ _Her_. That’s Betty. His fianceé. His fucking fianceé.” She sniffed and wiped at her face. “I bet she won’t even go down on him in his office.”

“God,” said Michael, horrified. “Okay. Time for bed. We’re going home.”

Peggy shoved money at him. “Go square up with the bill,” she said.

He heard the commotion behind him just as he was getting change back. Peggy was on her feet, making soothing motions at Megan. Stan was holding on to her arm. But it was no use; she broke away and headed for the karaoke stage. Peggy’s head swiveled towards him, her eyes wide. Oh shit, she mouthed. Megan stumbled, getting up on it. And then the music started up.

“This,” she said, weaving across the stage. “Is for a very special, special person.” She pointed straight at Don.

“Fuck my life,” said Michael. He darted towards the table.

“Everyone wants to know,” Megan sang, “If we fucked on the bathroom sink.” Someone hooted and there was a smattering of laughter and ironic applause. It only encouraged her. “How your hands felt in my hair, if we were hiiiiigh on amphetamines,” she continued, bumping and grinding around the stage like she was under a spotlight.

“Why didn’t you _stop_ her?” Michael hissed.

“She’s taller than me,” Peggy snapped. “And what was Stan supposed to do, throw her over his shoulder?”

“Yes!” Michael said.

Stan raised said shoulders laconically. “If I gotta,” he said.

“We wrote a story in the fog on the windows that night,” she sang. “But the ending is the same every damn time.” And then she — of course — wiggled her hips, put one leg up on the speaker, lifted the hem of her skirt and flashed her ass at the whole fucking room. There was more yelling and applause. Not so ironic, this time.

“Thank _god_ she’s wearing underwear,” Peggy said.

“Alright,” said Stan. “Enough. She’s had her fun.” He crowded her off the stage and wrapped her in her coat. Peggy grabbed her purse and downed the coffee Megan hadn’t touched. But Megan wasn’t done yet. Oh no.

“That’s the beauty of a secret,” she screamed at the retreating back of Don, who was gathering his coat and his fianceé and getting the hell out of dodge. “You know you’re supposed to _keep_ it.”

In the parking lot she started dissolving. “Let’s key his car,” she said, at first, but it was already gone and they never would have let her. Denied her revenge, she started to cry. Big, gulping sobs that she tried to hide behind her hands. “He was cheating on me,” she said. “The whole fucking _time_.”

“Megan,” said Michael. “Megan, come here. Come _here_.” He wrapped his arms around her and let her cry it out until she was too exhausted to fight them putting her in the car.

“He really did a number on her,” Stan said, standing outside while Peggy got the car started. He rubbed his hands together against the cold. Michael realized he’d forgotten his gloves in the bar, but it didn’t look like they were going back in for them. Megan was slumping against the inside of the door, curling in on herself.

She watched the frost covered trees roll past with dull eyes as they drove home. The tracks of mascara made her look exhausted, and her breath kept hitching before smoothing out again.

“Did you know Don was going to be at Aristotle's?” Michael asked. He was fairly certain that Peggy and Stan, sitting in the front seats, couldn’t hear. For them his words would be lost under the music playing on the radio.

“I followed him,” Megan said. “He doesn’t get to throw me out like I’m garbage.”

 

 

 

Michael made a snowman the next day. Well, technically he and Stan did but Stan got banished for putting the carrot inappropriate places.

He woke up early and antsy. Peggy got so annoyed by his pacing from room to room that she kicked him out. “Go for a walk,” she said. “Go to the library or for breakfast. Just get the hell out here, you’re making me dizzy. It’s like watching someone play ping pong.”

He did go for a walk, and stopped for hot chocolate when he got too cold. But he was still buzzing with nerves when got back to the house. He couldn’t restrain himself from thinking about Megan. If she was okay, if maybe he should bring her something back, if she would like for him to knock on her door and ask. If maybe she would hate him asking, would think they weren’t close enough for him to be asking at all. If she felt bad about last night, and what he could do to make her feel better. The fact that she was well and truly single now. The fact that it probably wouldn’t matter at all.

Michael had never been so focused in his thoughts on a single person before. It made him feel unstable. Thus, the walk and thus, the snowman.

It was five to noon when he went back inside the house. Stan and Peggy were gone. Megan had dragged herself out of bed and was seated at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of chicken broth.

“Does that help?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you after I manage to keep some down,” she said, glumly, breaking the surface of the broth with her spoon.

“How do you feel?”

“Like a drunk idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“I made a complete embarrassment of myself,” she said. “I can’t go back to Aristotle’s, now. Can’t show my face there ever again.”

The last part was delivered with a maximum of drama and Michael had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep from smiling. “That’s a loss?” he said.

She huffed. He could see her hackles rising. She had to be angry at something, he supposed, and apparently it was going to be him. “Laugh if you want,” she said. “You’re not the one pulling up your skirt on stage.”

“It would be pretty memorable if I did,” he said, and pulled out the chair across from her. “I’d better shave my legs first.”

“What the fuck was I thinking?” she said. “How did I think that would help? Now I’m some crazy girl that Don is going to tell stories about. He wins, every time. And he didn’t even have to do anything to make it happen.”

“He did plenty,” said Michael. “You were drunk and upset. At least you aren’t taking any other classes with him, right? You won’t have to see him except by accident.”

“I’ll know he’s there,” she said. “That’s enough.” She stirred her soup in sluggish circles. It had to be going cold. “I think I’m going to drop out,” she said.

Michael stared at her. “Like,” he said, “of _school_?”

“Yes, of school. Why would I stay here?”

“I don’t know,” he said, a cloud of fury building boiling up inside him. The room was suddenly ten degrees hotter, and he didn’t feel the cold that lingered on his skin from outside any longer. “Because I thought maybe you had some fucking _sense_?”

Her fingers curled tight around the handle of her spoon. He could see her itching to throw it at him. Well, let her. Just fucking let her.

“Don’t know where you got that idea,” she said.

“You are seriously going to let Don chase you out of school,” he said. “ _Don_. Who has probably done this so many times you could form a support group.”

She dropped the spoon altogether. It landed in the bowl with a splash and left a puddle of day-glo yellow broth on the table. She immediately put her sleeve in it but didn’t notice. “Thank you, Michael,” she said, “for reminding me of how special I wasn’t.”

“I don’t mean you!” he shouted. “I mean him! _Him_! He’s not special. There is one of these guys at every goddamned school and they always do exactly the same thing. And you’re going to give up your education for _that_?”

“I can get an education somewhere else!” she said. “I have _options_ , Michael.”

“I bet you do,” he said. “I bet when your parents can pay for it you can go just about anywhere. Why stick with anything, right Megan?” It was a cruel comment, and he shouldn’t have made it, but he had tipped into the red and there was no going back. This was what used to get him in trouble back in the day. What got him kicked out of foster homes, what got him beaten up at school. He had no emotional moderation.

He was dealing with a system of loans and scholarships so complicated even he couldn’t keep it straight. He had _one_ chance. And she was just gonna —

“Why not,” he said. “You have nothing holding you here, right? So go. Just go.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

“You already _did_ ,” he snarled, and slammed into his bedroom. He sat on his bed, still in the coat she bought for him, and fumed. But only for a minute. And then he was flinging the door open and grabbing Megan by the shoulders and pushing her towards the front door. “Get your coat on,” he said.

“What?”

“Here!” he said, throwing it at her. Her hair was wet from a shower, but she was wearing big fuzzy house slippers and that would do for now. If he tried to put her boots on for her she would probably bite him.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” she yelled as he got her outside.

He picked up a big stick from the ground and handed it to her. “The snowman is Don,” he said. “Do whatever you want to it.”

She gaped at him, bug-eyed. “Are you out of your _mind_?”

He opened his arms wide. “Probably! One of my shrinks had me do this once, except it was a pillow.”

“I should be hitting you with this!”

“Fine!” he said. “Do it! But hit something, Megan. Do _something_.”

She wrapped her hands around the stick like it was a baseball bat, wild eyed. There was a very long minute in which he didn’t have any idea what she was going to do. And then she turned, sucking in a harsh breath, and descended upon the snowman with a shriek.

She hit it so hard with the stick that she collapsed half of the head with one blow. “I hate you,” she screamed at the cock-eyed globe that was left. Another swing resulted in total decapitation. “I hate you,” she said, throwing a punch to the body that made it tip sideways. “ _I hate you!_ ” she cried, and delivered a kick that was the killing blow, toppling it entirely and sending her windmilling into Ginsberg. They fell back into a thankfully very thick pile of snow.

“Ow,” she said.

The neighbors were watching; he’d seen faces appear in the windows. But he didn’t care. So some old busybodies would talk. This was _therapy_.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I actually do.” She made no motion to get up in spite of being bare-legged in the snow. Instead she rolled off him and lay on her back, facing the grey winter sky. “You know what the worst part is? I let him lie to me. He gave me every piss-poor excuse in the world and I let him get away with it. Now I can’t tell if I was the other woman or if she was. I knew he had to be up to something and I let him get away with it. Why did I do that, Michael?”

“Because you loved him,” Michael said. “Because you trusted him.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I did. Until I didn’t.”

“You aren’t the one marrying him,” Michael said. “So consider that a bullet dodged.”

Megan smiled. It was a lopsided thing, pained, but genuine. “Can you imagine? Mrs. Draper. You know he wouldn’t let me keep my own name.”

“The further away it is the better it’ll get,” he said. “That’s how it is, with things that hurt.”

“Is that true?”

“No,” he said. “I’m lying.”

She turned towards him. There was snow in her hair, and goosebumps on her skin. “You make it sound like you’re an expert.”

Snowflakes drifted down from the sky. He could feel them sticking to his eyelashes, and he was going to have to change when he went inside. The seat of his pants was soaked through. He was turning nineteen in three days, and he hadn’t told a soul.

“Do I?” he asked. “It must be because I am.”

 

 

 

Michael flicked through the channels, sprawled halfway off the couch. Peggy and Stan were at a house party across the street. If he were to go to the window he would see the lights streaming from the house, would see girls in weather-inappropriate shoes and glittery eyeshadow tumble into the street from their cars; carrying beer or wine, tottering up the steps to ring the doorbell. As it was he could hear the music, faintly, especially when someone left or arrived.

It was New Year’s Eve, and he was home alone. But it was New Year’s Eve, and he didn’t have to wash dishes in an overheated kitchen on one of the busiest nights of the year. Having the day off was reward enough.

“Hi,” Megan said.

She was wearing sweatpants and a sweater and gave no indication that she was intending on changing out of them. He sat up out of politeness, trying to mentally re-adjust to having company. “You didn’t go out?” he asked. “That’s not like you.”

“Well,” she said, and sat down next to him, drawing her bare feet up on the cushions. “I think I’ve had enough of going out, recently.”

“Being banned from Aristotle's doesn’t mean you’re on house arrest,” he said. “It’s practically a badge of honor.”

“I didn’t get banned — oh, you’re kidding.”

“Not obviously enough,” he said. “So what’s up, doc? Something wrong?”

“Nope,” she said. “I stayed home on purpose. I thought you might want to watch a movie. Unless you have other plans.”

“Watching the ball drop,” he said. “I’m not married to it. What movie did you want to watch?”

“A New Year’s classic,” she said. He got a blanket while she started it up, and he came back to find the movie was set in the eighties, except nothing looked as bad as the eighties actually did.

“200 Cigarettes,” Megan said, taking her half of the blanket. “Have you ever seen it?”

“No,” he said. “Courtney Love is in this? When was she an actor?”

“She was nominated for an Oscar.”

“For this?”

“No, for — Michael, sit down. Watch the movie.”

“I’m making popcorn first,” he said. That had always been the part of going to the movies he’d liked best. He used to blow off school to catch them at the dollar theater, and would ask for extra butter every time.

Everyone, it turned out, was in the movie. It was one of those big ensemble pieces made with a bunch of It Girls and It Boys before everyone went on to become more famous somewhere else. He and Megan sat side by side and didn’t touch. He kept wanting to slump down against her side, to put an arm around her or touch the hair that was so soft in his memory. And he wanted not to want that.

Their hands bumped together when they reached for the popcorn at the same time. “Sorry,” he said, and pulled back.

A couple of minutes ticked by. He tangled his fingers together so he wouldn’t be tempted to do anything else with them.

“Tell me something about yourself,” she said.

Michael glanced over. Her face was unreadable. “Like what?”

“Anything,” she said. “I live with you in this house, and I feel like — I don’t know. That I barely know you. Or barely _got_ to know you,” and Michael didn’t know what the distinction was supposed to be but it seemed important to her. “You never talk about yourself,” she said.

“I talk about myself plenty.”

“Not important things. Not —”

“Where I come from?” he asked. “Why I don’t have a family.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“But you want to,” he said. The facts of his sad, shitty biography had defined him for years. He’d thought he could will it away. Leave it behind in a childhood he never wanted to revisit. He should have known that wouldn’t be possible.

“I want to know who you are,” she said.

“You do,” he said.

Megan nodded. “Okay,” she said, in a small voice, stress lines appearing on the sides of her mouth. She pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and felt farther away from him than ever. They could have been on opposite sides of the galaxy.

“Russia,” he said.

“What?” she asked, as though it was a non-sequitur. Which to her it must have been. She had no way of connecting the dots.

“I came from Russia,” he said. “I’m not actually American, not originally. I was adopted. I was five. I remember it.”

Megan turned the movie down and removed the popcorn to the coffee table. “I thought you grew up in foster care.”

“I did say _was_.” He grinned at her, but she didn’t find it funny. “They aren’t dead,” he said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.” They were still out there, rich, presumably happy, possibly with a menagerie of other children they had purchased somewhere. Children with better attitudes and fewer psychological problems. Who didn’t wake up in the middle of the night screaming about nothing, who didn’t panic at the sight of big dogs or men in dark coats. Who didn’t take all Dad’s liquor bottles and smash them on the sidewalk outside. Who didn’t eat until they got sick or refuse to eat at all.

“They didn’t want me,” he said, and in spite of his best efforts there was still a bitter tang to the words. They curled his lip. “I wasn’t satisfactory. So they turned me over to the system, and I grew up a ward of the state.”

“There aren’t consequences for that?” she said. “They didn’t — I don’t know, get fucking _charged_ with something? You can’t just abandon your kids.”

“Oh, you can,” he said. “As long as you do it legally. But not for free. They had to pay child support. So you see that they literally paid money to keep me away from them.”

“But we have to do something,” she said, like his life had suddenly become a team effort. “They can’t get away with it!”

“They’re gonna,” he said. “And they already did. And they always will. Rich people win more than they don’t.”

“But —”

“Megan, what do you want me to do?” he asked. “I already egged their house in the middle of the fucking night.”

“What?” she asked, after a beat. “When?”

He toyed with a hangnail. This was not a path he wanted to follow. Yet he had been the one to set out on it. “When I was fourteen,” he said. “And I was — really, really angry.” He spread his hands. “I didn’t go there intending to throw eggs at them, which is also what I told the police.”

It had been a rainy spring day. He’d had a black eye from a fight at school. It was that, as much as anything, that sent him spiralling down. It had a day to ripen, yellow-blue and ugly. He stood in the school bathroom that afternoon and pressed on the edges until black spots swam across his vision. He looked terrible; he felt terrible — and now he knew whose fault that was. Not his. Not ever fucking his, and god — he just wanted them to know what they had done.

The sun was going down by the time he got to Westchester. He worried that he would forget the address, or that a different family would be living there. The car in the drive was different.

But it was them. He had that confirmed after he rang the bell, and the woman who told him he was her son and then left him with ACS shut the door in his face.

He’d called her Mom. It just came out of his mouth, shocking him to the core. “Is that you, Mom?” he’d asked, because she’d changed her hair and there were new lines around her eyes. That was how she knew who he was. And how she knew that she didn’t want anything to do with him.

Lee and Portia Garner. They’d changed his last name when they adopted him. As soon as he was free to, he changed it back.

The eggs he got from a corner store. It took forever to find one — fucking suburbs — and it was dark when he got back. He used the whole carton. Screaming the whole time, fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you_ until his voice was raw and lights in neighboring houses were turning on. The police came not long after. He didn’t try to run, and he could still remember how the rainwater tasted, how it mixed with dirt in his mouth as they pressed him face first into the lawn.

“Did you get in trouble?” she asked.

“I got arrested,” he said. “But not charged. They wanted to — they were petty. But Morris intervened. He dredged up this lawyer, this real ambulance chaser who said we’d drag their reputation through the mud. Talk about how they’d traumatized me and all that.” He shrugged. “Also, I was a white kid. That helped.”

“Who’s Morris?” she said. “You haven’t mentioned him before.”

“My social worker,” he said. The man who raised me, he thought.

“He sounds like a good man.”

“He is,” said Michael. “He got me help, after. Mental help. I was in the hospital for awhile — you should know that, too.”

“It’s a miracle you managed to graduate on time,” she said.

“I was good at playing catch up,” he said. “I _am_ really smart, you know.”

Megan slipped her hand into his. The pressure of her soft, dry palm — somehow not all greasy with butter like his fingers were — was a comfort he couldn’t turn away. He tightened his grip.

“And now you’re here,” she said.

“Yeah. I am.” He shouldn’t be. He should have been a casualty of the system, a statistic. Somehow the stars had aligned just right. Only once, but that was all he needed. The rest he could do himself.

“I’m so glad you are,” she said. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes this year. God — stupid fucking mistakes. But meeting you wasn’t one of them. And sleeping with you wasn’t, either. I’m — Jesus.” She wiped at her eyes with a rueful smile. “I’m getting emotional. This was supposed to be sexier. I wanted to seduce you. But it’s really hard to seduce somebody in sweatpants, while bawling.”

“Megan,” he asked, his breath catching in his throat. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it’s midnight,” she said. “And I want you to kiss me.”

 

 

 

The line at the coffee shop was long and as soon as he got to the front a woman with one of those soccer mom angled haircuts came back in to dispute her order. Michael was so cheerful that he didn’t care; he got out of the way and texted Megan while he waited for them to finish.

_good morning gorgeous_ , he wrote. _you want anything?_

_Only you ;)_ , she texted back, and he smiled, thinking she was kidding, until she sent him a picture that almost made him drop the phone.

“Sir?” the barista asked. “Can I get you something?”

“Two lattes,” he said, jamming his phone into his pocket before anyone else could see what was on there. “Um. To go. And quickly, please.”

 

 

 

Michael crept into the kitchen at the break of dawn. The sky looked like a stained glass window. He left Megan asleep in the bedroom — she often slept heavily and didn’t notice his comings and goings unless he dropped something or turned on a light. He hated disturbing her: she looked so sweet when she slept.

He made himself a pot of coffee and called Morris. “Hey,” he said, when he picked up, “This isn’t too early, is it?”

“No, no,” Morris said. “The kids got me up, anyway.” By kids Morris meant his grandchildren, whom Michael could hear in the background hitting each other with rocks or whatever it was they did. “Is something wrong?”

“Everything’s great,” he said. “Really great. I — uh. I have a girlfriend.”

“Michael,” Morris said. “That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, well,” Michael said. “Don’t get too excited. She’s a shiksa.”

“She can always convert.”

“Slow down,” said Michael. “We are nowhere _near_ that point.”

“I know,” said Morris. “I was making a joke.”

Michael chewed on his lip. “She wants,” he started and stopped. It should have been an easy question to ask. He knew Morris wouldn’t say no. “She’d like to meet you,” he said. “So I was wondering — I dunno, maybe I could bring her over. Like for Shabbat dinner or something. We could get a hotel —”

“You could stay here,” Morris said. “Me and Helena, you know we have that spare room. Of course you can.”

“Thank you,” Michael said. It came upon him very quickly, the need to say thank you, and not for the offer of a spare room for a single night. He hoped Morris would know that, because his throat closed up at the idea of having to elaborate. Maybe one day. Or maybe in a letter, so he wouldn’t have to actually talk while he did it.

“No problem, kiddo,” Morris said. “Are you happy, out there?”

Michael looked out the window again, at the vivid pink in the sky. The house settled around him, creaking in it’s comfortable way. The floor was cold under his feet. He thought about his warm bed, and who was in it.

“I am,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The song Megan sings to Don is Strange Love by Halsey. I couldn't remember if Lee Garner Jr had a wife or if she had a name, so I made one up. I hope I got the basics of the foster care system right.


End file.
